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Another politician with too much time on his hands; someone should tell him that hybrids have been stuck with a tiny 3% (or less) market share for well over a decade.
Toss in plunging oil/gas prices and that percentage isn't going to change anytime soon.
Another example of GOP socialism. Take earnings from someone and give it to someone else. Anyone who wants to save should be paying extra fees ? What happen to capitalism did it get carjacked on the way to the auto. dealer ?
Only an insignificant number of people are going to commit crimes to save on taxes. Statistically, an extremely insignificant number of people cheat on their taxes. And rolling back odometers is not so easy that it's going to be worth it for $100/year.
Curb weight is accurate enough. More accurate than measuring the impact a car has on roads by how much gasoline it uses.
Well, lets put this in perspective. California's average total tax per gallons of gas is ~67 cents. If someone drove a 25 mpg car 15,000 miles in a year. He would have used 600 gallons of gasoline. That means a total tax bill of about ~$400(though some states would be nearly half that).
And that is the "typical car and miles driven". If you don't see a relatively lucrative black-market business for avoiding hundreds of dollars a year in taxes, you don't spend much time with the "criminal-types".
Secondly, a lot of people cheat on their taxes. Pretty much everyone I know who does itemized deductions and is self-employed does things like write off their personal expenses as business expenses. Most people who are employed by someone else and don't need to itemize won't cheat on their taxes, because they basically can't. Except I know a lot of family members who "claim each others kids" to maximize their deductions/tax return.
I promise you up front, I would cheat the system if it wasn't too difficult. Plus a lot of people have cars whose odometers don't even work.
As for the curb weight. I think it would work for regular passenger cars. I was just thinking of commercial vehicles, because they are often heavily modified. A tow-truck for instance is at least a thousand pounds heavier than if it was a stock pickup. Commercial vans might be loaded down with tools and materials
I do like the proposal overall BTW. I know I come off very pessimistic. I would much prefer it to the current system. In fact, I would rather get rid of the "car tag" pretty much altogether and transfer the costs more proportionately to those who drive.
For instance, I have a car that hasn't moved since February that I would have to keep tagged at $83 a year. But it is worse than that. To tag the car, I have to get car insurance even though the car doesn't move. So I let the car tag "lapse". In doing so, the state is charging me an additional $1 per day up to 90 days per year when I do finally tag it, plus I have to pay all "back tags". So if for instance I went to tag the car next March(when the tag is due), I would have to pay $83 last years tag + $83 this years tag + $90 tag late fees + car insurance(about $40 a month x 6 months minimum = $240). Which is nearly $500 in fees and insurance on a car that doesn't move because it is down for maintenance and is just a "backup car" that I was going to give to my nephew when he starts driving.
If I don't tag the car within the next couple years, the fees will become so large, it'll get to the point that it won't even be worth tagging the car, and it'll just have to be junked.
And for what good does it do to have these kinds of fees on cars that aren't even using the roads? Aren't they just penalizing people who don't drive often?
You people can cry about your $50 a year for a hybrid car. But let me tell you, anyone who is driving a hybrid or electric car is either really wealthy, or is putting a lot of miles on it each year. The batteries have a "shelf-life" of around 10 years. You basically need to get as close to 200k miles out of a hybrid or electric car in the first 10 years of ownership or its a bad investment. Since in almost all cases electric car owners are getting out of having to pay a lot more than $50 a year in fuel taxes. It doesn't even make much sense to complain about it.
In reality, I never understand why more people don't complain about the system we have now, which greatly harms the most vulnerable in society(IE the poor). I assume its simply because they are poor, so no one really cares.
I certainly agree with you on the efficiency of railroads and rail would be my preferred way to move freight and as a basis for a mass-transit system.
However, in cities, trucks would still have to be used at the very least to move freight from railroad depots to places of business. I'm also not sure how a railroad would work as a distribution system within a smaller region for retail establishments. For example, I know someone who used to be an order picker in a warehouse for a company that distributed to convenience stores. They would pick the orders and load them into the trucks who then deliver them to several retail stores in one area. I'm not sure a rail system could replace that without a massive restructuring of the infrastructure (massive reinfrastructuring, lol). So, trucks would still be around in any event, even if the long haul ones that are responsible for the most wear and tear on the freeways could be eliminated.
I agree to a certain extent that trucks will basically always be necessary. But I think you should use your imagination more. You seem to be assuming that the infrastructure itself wouldn't be affected from such a change. That there would only be fewer trucks. In reality, the entire infrastructure would be radically different if there were less trucks. Or especially, if the entire transportation industry was never subsidized to begin with.
The reason why people like Adam Smith advocated the government basically get out of "the market". Was because what he was promoting was "the greatest efficiency".
The railroad/trucking situation that we have been discussing is the perfect example of how government intervention in markets creates inefficiency.
As many know, the trucking industry is heavily subsidized by offsetting the cost of the damage they do onto the rest of society. As I noted before, semi trucks are about 1/4th as efficient when it comes to moving freight compared to a train. That means, if the government stopped subsidizing trucks, we would use far "fossil fuels" overall. Which not only means benefits for the environment. But it would also be a significant boost for us economically, and would require us to import far less oil from overseas.
And on top of all of that, the "end cost to consumers" would also be lower. Since consumers are the ones paying the additional taxes to subsidize trucks in the form of "other taxes". The price of goods might appear to go up, but we would have more money to spend, so we would overall be much better off.
So why don't we stop subsidizing trucking? Because they are a powerful lobbying group. Not only can we not subsidize trucking, but its been more than 20 years since the federal fuel excise tax has been raised. To cover inflation alone, it would have to be nearly doubled.
It's a user fee, use the roads and you pay for them. Don't have a car you don't pay. What is there to complain about?
One of the reasons to have a hybrid is to pay less for gas or use less gas. That is the goal to be less energy dependent and it is defeated to a degree when it is singled out for special treatment. Its not necessary to do that. All they would have to do to make it a non issue would be to increase the $800 to $810 or what ever amount to get the money they want. Its not a big deal, just better marketing.
"The fee on vehicle purchases would be based on a percentage of the sale price and would apply to new vehicles but not used ones. It would add $800 to the price of a $32,000 car.
But those who drive hybrid and electric vehicles would have to pay an additional fee of $50 a year."
And on top of all of that, the "end cost to consumers" would also be lower.
The costs will not be lower, if you increase the cost on trucking you're not magically making rail cheaper or more efficient. It just becomes more attractive and cost competitive because the cost of trucking has gone up.
Your savings comes in road building/maintenance costs and whether that will offset the higher prices at the store is debatable.
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